Published by Orion on November 12 2020
Format: eARC, ARC
Source: Net Galley, Publisher
Pages: 368
Amazon UK
Goodreads
Twenty-five years ago my brother was murdered in my family home.
I was sent to a psychiatric unit for killing him.
The truth is, I didn't do it.
The whole world believed nine-year-old Cara killed her younger brother on that fateful night. But she blamed it on a paranormal entity she swears was haunting her house.
No one believed her and after two years of treatment in a psychiatric unit for delusional disorder, Cara was shunned by her remaining family and put into foster care.
Now she's being forced to return to the family home for the first time since her brother's death, but what if she's about to re-discover the evil that was lurking inside its walls?
I have 6 words and two sentences which will sum up this book.
What A Book
And
It blew me away
I love everything to do with ghosts and so when the email landed in my inbox about this book well I wasn’t going to say no. I mean an unknown entity called Limey Stan, a child murdered and someone else blamed for it.
I was on day 3 of a migraine when I picked this up, I wanted a distraction, yes I know I should be resting but I thought oh one chapter won’t hurt. Well, one chapter turned into 50% of the book and I struggled to put the book down. I really didn’t want to.
When Cara comes back to the house, stuff starts to happen again and I strapped myself in for the ride. Now I am not going to lie, I guessed the twist but that is only because of a few keywords put in seemingly innocent sentences. None of this detracted from the story, in fact, it amplified the tension, creepiness and the darkness. However, yes however, I wasn’t as clever as I first thought, Michelle still had more tricks up her sleeve and I loved it!!!! There are a few shocks and when we learn about that night, the ripples that fall after were just so tragic and unnecessary.
The writing flows so easy and I was hooked. I was so engrossed by the story, could Cara be an unreliable narrator or is there something bigger going on. When we see the story told by other perceptions, it definitely casts that doubt out there. Can we ever just take things at face value? Can we always trust what we are shown? I must admit I was thinking I might doubt my own sanity when things start to happen to Cara in the present day. I mean were the toys moving, did the table turn over by itself? Was someone there? Or did we imagine it?
I have not read anything by Michelle before and now I see there a few books to catch up on, plus reading the snippet of her new book The Death of Me has got me a bit giddy!!
God, I cant explain anywhere near as coherently as I want to, to how epic this book was. I didn’t want to put it down, I didn’t want to work I wanted to read and mostly I wanted to know who the heck Limey Stan was. It is definitely one of my top reads so far this year. It had everything I wanted and so much more from a book. Just don’t start it late at night because you will be sucked down that rabbit hole of unrelenting reading, especially with the short and snappy chapters to keep you captivated.
Just read it!
Until next time xxx
Thanks to Jenny from Hodder for the tour invite and the author for a copy of the book in return for my honest and unbiased review
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
Jacob Collins - Hooked From Page One says
It was such a creepy read wasn’t it? You definitely need to read her DC Maggie Neville series!
Zoé says
Yes I will do! I loved her writing and this is definitely one of my top books of the year!